


Faith

by mothra_leo



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Bad things happened to Herbert in captivity, Hurt/Comfort, Loving but not terribly sexual, M/M, Mix of story and film material, Narrator is Dan, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-23 02:57:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20884997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothra_leo/pseuds/mothra_leo
Summary: Narrator, who's really just Dan Cain (so sue me), thinks he's retired to a quiet life back in the Bolton cottage. When he awakens to a very undead Herbert West crawling at his doorstep, he finds that perhaps a quiet life is better when spent with someone-at least, it would be quiet, if not for that infernal Major trying to call Herbert back for his own purposes.Unnecessarily wordy. I'm not sorry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story feels to me like a Lovecraft story in reverse. It opens with a great horror; it works through strangeness to relief and, I hope, comfort.  
I also set out with the intention of writing purely kink; this has mutated into the “let’s write like Lovecraft” challenge (albeit that I hope it’s less problematic than he is!). I doubt that my command of archaic language is really good enough to do that, but I hope that the reader likes what I’ve done (also that, in their opinion, it’s still got some of the Good Stuff). Also I hope that the reader appreciates what I’m doing to my writing language, because heck I’m writing an actual novel and good gravy does this do funny things to my turns of phrase.  
It is also more asexual than I meant for it to be, but I’m not a porn/penetration person as much as I am into tensions and power dynamics, so hopefully it’s satisfying.  
I'm not ashamed of the ending, you've seen the movies, it's on brand, I swear to Yog-sothoth.

I last saw Doctor Herbert West in circumstances inconceivable to the normal course of mortal life. That these circumstances were effectively his fault-his and mine-might be attributed to some cosmic sense of morality; but that, I would suggest, is mere coincidence. Herbert had broken the power which death held upon certain individuals. It was only logical that those who had been so freed by him might demand more of him, and come to exact their wishes.  
It should not have surprised me, then, to find that Herbert had not been allowed to depart this world after he had been carried off by Sir Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, even though his departure had been in the form of a disembodied head placed upon a platter. At the time, given the extreme nature of his removal, I could only agree with the police that he must be dead-though they laughed at my story.  
I still remember the expression that had been on his face then. It had been the first time I genuinely saw the horror that West experienced. I often wondered, after that terrible scene, how often he had looked at his own deeds with such horror, and merely failed to express it.  
After that night, with the evidence of Herbert’s demise restored to normalcy and lacking any ability to disprove a crime, I retired from public life for a time. How could I prove to public opinion that I had not killed Herbert myself, and disposed of his body? The knowledge that I had participated in his works-though few enough of them were known-was enough to make me a pariah to polite society.  
This exclusion suited me. I had enough saved, and enough inherited, to survive well enough on my own. After some time spent in a tiny apartment, gathering my nerves, I returned to the Bolton cottage to live. The house was still mine; ours, that is, but mine now that Herbert was considered dead. Herbert and I had rented it for a time while we resided in Boston, and now that I had use for a semi-isolated, quiet place to live, I found it conveniently untenanted and suited to my needs.  
I found myself setting up a small laboratory, where once we had assembled a greater one. I did not have a great work of my own; but sometimes I found the need to consider small matters of chemistry. It was only because of the depth of our former research that sometimes I considered reanimation, and the effect of various substances on the organisms of the living. In time, I overcame my distaste at the source of such knowledge, and even developed a few of my learnings into medications and papers which I published under an assumed name. Herbert would scoff at the limits of my work, but I found comfort and even some small personal fulfillment in knowing that human individuals would benefit from what I had learned at such great cost.  
I even found myself practicing again, in a small way; the inhabitants of Bolton cared little for the pride of high society, and appreciated my willingness to treat them for their complaints without regard to class, color, creed, or preference. Herbert had once justified this lack of prejudice with the idea that any patient might prove a useful subject; but in my case, I found the cause valid in its own right. There were humans in need; I was a doctor. Why should I not succour them?  
Still I was alone. I had no romances; no female visitors, nor male. Despite that, my life was comfortable, quiet, and very relaxed. As much as I missed the direction that I used to have, I did not begrudge the calm. The lack of horrifying scenes and the sanity and normalcy of my days was a balm. It came as a complete surprise to me, then, after some three years of life undisturbed in my sleepy cottage home, to find Herbert West, cognizant, bodied, and mobile--scraping at my door at two in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Herbert lay, shaking and nonverbal, upon my-our-door. At first I feared him. He could not be alive-had not been, should not be-but he was here. This meant that Lee had done things to him; what more than undeath, I could not guess. But sentiment, which Herbert had always shunned and which I had buried for his works, moved me. It was not a very hard task to lift Herbert, thin as he was, and carry him inside; after closing and bolting my doors, I took him down to the lab.  
I wanted to take him to a bed; my own, as the other was currently unmade, but needs required my equipment. I could not harbor Herbert without some understanding of his current aspect. I turned up the gas as much as I felt reasonable, so that the lab would get some heat, and began to examine my former partner.  
He was undead; that much I already knew. He had been reanimated; he displayed none of the faults of an imperfect process. This impressed me until I remembered the legion from the underground; they had taken things with them, things not limited to Herbert’s poor and horrified mortal remains. Reagent had surely been among them.  
As for the rest of Herbert’s condition, it presented a series of intriguing questions. I say intriguing, but really they were abhorrent. I could not, however, answer them while Herbert was silent; and I did not know then if I should ever find him in another state.  
It was some time before Herbert was in a condition to speak. That he could speak at all was something of a miracle; but not unheralded. There had been words, before; words spoken by dead men and women, words of terror and foreboding. Those words had done nothing to sate my youthful curiosities about death; instead, they had always taught me new reasons to fear the living-and in time, Herbert himself.  
It was an act of supreme irony that Herbert’s first words to me, as a member of the reanimated undead, was the sentence: “Dan… oh, God, Dan… you were right about dying.”  
These words, spoken by my former partner as he lay on our ancient operating table, startled me. I did not drop my pencil, focused as I was upon my notes, but it came as a complete surprise that Herbert would either apologize to me, or, even more strangely, validate my long-abandoned hypothesis that some awareness did exist beyond the grave.  
Despite that remarkable realization, it was no longer my first concern. “Are you all right?” I asked. The meaningless urbanity of the phrase immediately made itself plain to me, but Herbert did not frown and amend it as he once might have.  
Instead, Herbert stared at the ceiling. “I feel abhorrent,” he said gravely. Then, he looked around himself. He must have known the place at once, despite the lack of much equipment. “We’re safe?” He asked, a hunted aspect returning to his demeanour as he oriented himself. He shivered as he sat up, allowing his legs to dangle off the edge of the table.  
“Safe enough,” I said. “Did any… people…,” I hazarded, “follow you here?”  
“They didn’t know I left,” Herbert muttered, looking outwards at things beyond the mere laboratory walls. “Don’t know what they know. Can’t tell like he does-” A paroxysm of shudders hit Herbert then, and it was only after I steadied him for a long moment in my arms that he was able to find words again.  
“He does search,” Herbert said. “I can feel it. But he doesn’t know I used to live here. You must destroy the deeds-” He trembled, and caught himself. “Lay a false trail. Anything. He must not find me.”  
I could well agree to that. There would be years of records in chemical purchases and deliveries that indicated one Herbert West had once operated out of Bolton. A dedicated search would lead to that, and the suspicion that Daniel Cain still had something to do with his associate.

There was a strange comfort in the normalcy of having Herbert living there, alongside my self, back in the Bolton cottage; we had spent years here, hopeful and productive, young and relatively unscathed by our years of horror.  
But in reality, dark things had been done here; I should not romanticize something as strange as my own career. Still, I wished for happier times; because the evidence of Herbert’s journey past human limits was all around me now.  
He had not been restored through mercy. This much was clear. While his body was whole, displaying indeed all the characteristics of a successfully reanimated individual, Herbert had not been well-cared for. He was thin; his undead heart raced with tensions that all too often ranged beyond the healthy; his hair had gone pale. I was not entirely certain how many of these features might be attributed to his reanimated condition, but I could admit that many seemed due to mistreatment. The bruises that he had borne when he first found me were proof of that.  
As Herbert recovered, eating little but grateful to have what he did consume, he began to provide some explanations. These, combined with observations I made, horrified me. I did not pressure him; he was anxious enough as it was, and I did not wish to open wounds that he seemed determined to heal on his own terms. Nevertheless, a repugnant picture did grow.  
Clapham-Lee had, indeed, reanimated Herbert within hours of taking him from the Boston estate. He remained in parts-reanimated, intangibly connected, functional parts-for some amount of time. Lee had a laboratory of his own, somewhere; research of his own, and the means to direct West’s own previous experiments towards pursuing that work.  
What Lee lacked, then, was certain knowledge that only West possessed. West had never given Lee a complete picture of the necessary formula for his reagent. I was overcome with horror at the thought; before West’s return, it had been good to know that Lee was powerless outside of his existing acquisitions. Now, I could not be certain. But Herbert shuddered, almost fainting, and shook his head.  
“I would not tell him,” he said. “I- I couldn’t. I won’t do it. He forced me to make it, but I won’t tell him how,” he insisted, nearly frantic in my arms. He had spent long years in this denial, I realized, and at the mercy of a man who could transcend death in his attempts to gain the information that West denied him.  
There were many scars where Herbert had been-I shuddered to think-reassembled. Not all of the-seams-were elegantly made, and the scar tissue showed signs of repeated damage and healing. I did not ask what tortures Lee had resorted to, in his attempts to force the reagent formulae from Herbert.  
Instead, I did what I could to give him what he wanted or needed. Herbert did not actually argue with the idea of staying in Bolton; the house remained isolated enough. I established plans for an escape, if we had to make it; a rapid transit to the coast, a trip overseas, or by rail to places north or southerly that we might find safer. Herbert appreciated the multiple plans and precautions. “You’ll come with me, if we must run?” he asked, eyes almost pitiful, and I agreed instantly. Herbert still had the power to keep me by his side, even now.  
There were other elements to his fears. I had to make certain to remain aware of West’s whereabouts when I had to make use of the kitchen. At first I could not account for his fear of a harmless household refrigerator; while I could well imagine that Lee might shut someone up in a cold place for punishment, surely that would be on the order of a walk-in facility. Then I recalled the condition in which West had left my acquaintance, and that a reanimated body needed no really human-sized dimensions to function. After that, I did not wonder at all.  
The real surprise came to me some weeks after Herbert and I had settled back into a semblance of life together. Our routine had become nearly relaxed; I would see my patients or peruse my correspondence while Herbert stayed in the master bedroom or in one of the upstairs offices, and so preserve his privacy while I went about my business. Of evenings, we might go out; instead of our past ghoulish excursions, we embarked upon walks so that Herbert might get some fresh air.  
“I like the dark,” he remarked once, watching the distant lights of the factories. “It feels safer here. As long as I’m with you, really,” he added. The uncharacteristic confession of vulnerability, of comfort that he took in my presence, was proving to be a new normal for Herbert West. I reminded him of better days. I thought at first that this was all I could read from such expressions, but as time passed, I realized that Herbert might have harboured a genuine affection for me. True, it bothered him that I aged; that I was subject to that death that mortals are. At the same time, he was not uncaring; he did not see me as mere raw materials.  
“I should have tried it on you,” Herbert said one night, as we walked nostalgically past the graveyard. “I thought of presenting you with the offer of life. But I was afraid you would not stay, once you had it.” He actually smiled, wanly, and without humor. Only bitterness, and regret. “What would you have needed me for, then?”  
The idea that only mortality-and the promise of a life without end-was what bound me to him made many things more clear to me. Herbert rebuffed my protests that night, but over time, I found cause to tell him in more detail, and with great sincerity, how much I had felt for him over our years together. The idea that I cared for him personally, for more than our work, more than immortality, seemed to do as much to help Herbert recover as our ongoing precautions and physical care did.


	3. Chapter 3

The crisis came one night after we had retired from a long day’s work. I had been presented with a factory injury, more troublesome than the usual, and had almost longed for a vial of the reanimation agent so that I could stabilize my patient more effectively. I had succeeded in patching the victim together, however, and sent them to the hospital in Arkham for longer care; but I was exhausted.  
Herbert met me with some trepidation that night. He had taken to sleeping longer than usual, and at odd hours; I had not asked, but the habit coincided with a growing unease on his part about the chances of pursuit. We had been asked after in several places, and I had sent word to many former suppliers of chemicals and equipment to refuse our information to any seemingly well-meaning enquiries. Still, no immediate attack or pursuit materialized, and Herbert had a peculiar insistence that no danger was close at hand.  
His nervous concern, then, dealt not with material dangers, but others less material; and finally, these became apparent to me. I was still in the dark regarding much of Herbert’s time in Clapham-Lee’s hands-at least, when it came to details-and I had perforce remained ignorant of Herbert’s greatest fears. He came to me often for comfort, both verbal and physical, nonetheless; and he spent many a night laid out in my own bed, taking comfort in my warmth, as his body produced little.  
On this particular night, I had left the window open; the summer heat was not yet oppressive, and the air was pleasant. I awoke from a peaceful slumber to find Herbert standing, staring out the open window.  
I almost fell back asleep, and I shudder to think what might have happened if I had indeed done so; but instead I watched him, wondering whether age would encroach on him now that he had been freed from the actions of normal physiology, until he moved. But instead of coming back to bed, Herbert silently and almost mechanically went to the bedroom door, opened it, and left.  
The strangeness of this development had me out of bed and following him in an instant. Herbert moved quickly enough; down the stairs, to the barred front door. This he had open in a moment, with a deftness that precluded the haze of sleep. Then he was out.  
I ran then, coming to his side in a moment. “Herbert!” I stopped him-for I had to stop him physically, with my hands on his upper arms-and called his name. “Are you awake? What’s wrong?” I tried to gain his attention; but he looked north, staring fixedly at some point unknown to me. He tried to move; again, I held fast. Suddenly, he looked at me; and then he lost all of his eerie composure.  
“NO!” He yelled, crying out and reaching northwards, as if fending something off. “NO- no- get away- I won’t- I will not!” He flailed at my grasp, too, trying to free himself with a childlike panic and nearly succeeding. He was yet weak, however, and whatever trance of dream he was enmeshed in began to clear. Soon, Herbert was pulling both of us towards the house, an effort that I was more than glad to assist in.  
“Dan- no, Dan, he’s trying- Dan, help me,” Herbert pleaded then, unresisting and even clinging to me in his terror. “Dan, I can’t do this,” he nearly sobbed.  
I got him back inside, barring the door again carefully, and checking the rest of the house with Herbert refusing to leave my grasp. Then, with a lamp lit, I took him back upstairs.  
His composure somewhat restored, Herbert looked a bit sheepish as he sat on my bed. His dismay, however, was not to be mocked and I refused to do anything but take it seriously. I handed him a glass of sherry. He drank.  
“Has it passed?” I asked him.  
“...for the moment,” Herbert said. “That’s the strongest he’s been. I don’t know why,” he said. “You remember his voice from the vat,” Herbert added. I could only nod. “It’s the same mechanism,” Herbert said. “My own connections sustained me when I- when my body was- before. But he’s learned…” Herbert shivered, and I steadied him, so that he did not spill his glass. “He can reach out to me, and try to enforce his will on others,” Herbert finished, finding words that suited him. I could tell that every aspect of the thought was still abhorrent to him, as it was me. The legion which had followed him-had they been bent to his will, in the same way? But it made a horrific sort of sense.  
“Take me away from him,” Herbert pleaded, looking up at me with tear-clouded eyes. I could not refuse; if I could, I would have shot Clapham-Lee and burned him on the spot. But I did not then know how.  
I sat next to Herbert, and wrapped him in the blankets; I helped him finish the sherry, and bid him stay the rest of the night.  
“We’ll find some way,” I told him, in lieu of reassurances I could not yet make. “Remember, you escaped him once already,” I said, stroking Herbert’s hair gently.  
“...not wholly,” he said, quietly. “Not for good.”  
I could only hold Herbert close, and share my life and warmth. In the morning, his mood had passed; but our awareness of danger abroad was newly kindled.  
It was only days later, after the article in the newspaper, that we realized how close we had really come to disaster. There, under the political news and a report on the Miskatonic expedition to the South Pole, was an item remarkable for its implications as much as its skeptically urbane tone.  
‘From Moosanee, Ontario-’ it read, ‘News of an incident remarkably like the dirty laundry of our old Arkham. A house burned down in the immigrant district of a Moosanee suburb. There, it was reported that a Major Dr. Clapham-Lee had been conducting experiments with transients and the bodies of the recently deceased. Another quirk like our Dr. West? There’s little use asking him, for the house was lost with the Major in it, and most involved.’  
The co-incidence of timing could not be ignored. Clapham-Lee had made an accident, or found himself discovered, and called for help-or, perhaps, for revenge, at the last extremity. Herbert had fallen under that call and, despite his best efforts, his shattered nerves had given in under the unexpected assault. An assault that, despite many kilometers and mortal boundaries, had reached him from across the planet. If it had succeeded, Herbert might still be on his way to renewed captivity.  
There was no doubt that such forces, such connections might exist; after all, I had been present when we had realized the extent of the intangible connections between body and mind. The concept did not, after all, astonish me so badly, once I had come to terms with it. Any common individual might never notice such a supranatural network, bound as it would be to their own physical form; and an injured individual’s limbs would cease to be, and so never be able to return any invisible call. It was only under the conditions of Herbert’s remarkable reagent that living parts might continue to live-and communicate.  
It did not take much of a leap in logic to consider that, given the rumors of psychic sensitivity and nonphysical communication which existed in the world, that the senses tuned to these intangible connections could be turned towards those of other living entities.  
It horrified me, however, to think that these connections could be used to influence-or control. It was through physical means that Herbert had been made prisoner during his absence of four years-but the intangible methods of his captor had been employed to their fullest to batter down Herbert’s resistance.

Under the burden of our newest discovery, then, we passed our next days. Clapham-Lee could reach out over a distance, and had actually done so, in an attempt to recapture Herbert or bend him to Lee’s aid. Lee might not be dead, after all. He was already dead; and had presented mortal danger. What if he had escaped the fires intact? Herbert, after several days’ time, was convinced of his ongoing presence.  
“He is in my mind,” Herbert stressed one night, hissing his words between gritted teeth. “I will not obey, but he tries all the same- My mind… it should be sacrosanct-” I could think of little to do to comfort him; but I held him closer, my arm around his waist, and my other hand stroking gently his whitened hair. It crossed my mind that it was high irony that Herbert West, transgressor of mortal boundaries and human consent, should find himself at the mercy of one who did not respect his personal boundaries-but of this I said nothing.  
It would not help; not now. Herbert was in the paroxysm of sensations I could not share in, nor quite understand, and I was a doctor. I had to help him. Besides, I should confess that I felt a little drunken with power. It was I, not Herbert, who held sway in the Bolton cottage now. It was I who provided our means and our secrecy. And it was I who held Herbert close, comforted his shivers, and thought of a way to salve his wounds.  
This seeming intangible menace had to be dealt with, and I would do it.  
I had resolved to go into the lab, to begin to organize my thoughts. There was research to be done.  
“Don’t go,” Herbert gasped, clutching at me when I shifted in the bed. His pulse was still racing; his body, chill and shaken.  
I wanted to get to work; to determine a way to break the invisible chains Lee had wrought. But my sentiment held sway over me in a way it had never done for Herbert. He wanted me here.  
“I won’t,” I said, settling down beside him and pulling him against me in a gesture that had become familiar and comforting. “Tomorrow, I’m starting work on a way to stop this,” I said.  
“Thank you,” Herbert shivered, yet stayed right where he was. In another time, he would be throwing me out of his room, demanding I get to work already-but in this state, the comfort I could give was as critical a treatment for him as any science. As surprising as that was, this was a perspective I could accept.  
Herbert did relax, though he slept fitfully. I kept him warm, holding him close, and found myself asleep in time.


	4. Chapter 4

The conundrum before me was twofold. At first I hoped that putting more distance between our selves and Clapham-Lee might put an end to his assault on Herbert’s senses. But what did distance mean, after all, to a force which could transfer information without a physical medium? And, given that I was up against a force which was nonphysical, how might I block it using merely physical means?  
But it was that same thought which gave me the clue for a solution. Why, then, should I limit myself to physical cures? Even the sentiment which led me to take Herbert in, to try my best to save him, and even now for which I risked my own safety (for Clapham-Lee was still at liberty, and had less scruples than Herbert), was a nonphysical force. How delicious, I thought, that Herbert West should find himself given aid by something as banal to him as love.  
There had been studies into forces beyond those of the simple, material world. Arkham was a fortuitous place for such studies; while the elders of the college were adamant that few should penetrate into those mysteries, still they had a peculiar idea that students should understand their existence (as if this would not encourage further study). I knew about the books; the secret mysteries of key and dreamland; the Necronomicon with its myriad horrors.  
I knew of a gate. And this gate, once opened, held many strange possibilities; but it could be closed. This did not provide me with an immediate solution; but I considered it. If there was such a gate, an entity in its own right, could not the human body be seen as holding its own gates? And, given that Lee seemed to be able to make use of them, once opened (or to open them, given that he appeared to be able to make use of them on an intact individual, as well), should it not be possible to close such gates?  
Then, too, the fact that Lee’s influence seemed too weak or of the wrong nature to have an effect on the living was an interesting datum. I could not conclude that he couldn’t affect the living, however; a weak-minded or drugged individual might have a vulnerability that the undead monstrosity could penetrate. There was not enough data.  
Nevertheless, I could learn.  
There was an added urgency to my studies, now that they had taken on such a peculiar direction. Herbert was terrified that Lee might find him; and I agreed with his concern. While I was unable to effect a real solution immediately, I took it upon myself to hide Herbert from these occult forces. That was, in itself, a balm to him; and it was with inexpressible relief that Herbert felt the pressures fall away as I lit a censer in the kitchen. Sweet smoke filled the air around us, saturating the medium with a peculiar scent. I should have done it in the laboratory, but considering the effects of smoke on the equipment, decided on the safer option. The herbs and resins were a combination recommended in certain eldritch literature, and even as Herbert relaxed, he was fascinated that such mundane things as fire or smoke might effect such a salubrious change on his intangible self.  
He hugged me, then. I hesitated, on several grounds, but soon I returned his embrace.  
“What did you do, Dan?” Herbert asked, still fascinated by censer and flame. “There’s no logic to it. But I- oh, God, I feel so much better-” He shook his head, reduced even now to imprecations to a God he did not worship.  
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll write it up for you, but the explanations are too vague. It works, that’s all I care about. I don’t know how far the effect reaches. I’m going to come up with something that works permanently,” I promised.  
Herbert nodded, and I could already see him mentally considering a test of the boundaries, now that he had a safe place to operate within. I did not argue. The danger he might expose himself to was nothing compared to the positive change that safety wrought in his demeanor; and I would not deny Herbert the freedom to take control of his situation, precarious as it was. Lee had taken away enough.

Having erected a somewhat defense against Herbert’s oppressor, I turned to work in earnest. Lee might seek us out, it was true; but until then, I would work to keep Herbert safe, and proof against any control. I might, in turn, save myself and others from such unholy fates; and if Lee did seek us out, then we might put an end to him, and in doing so remove the threat entirely.  
Or, I cautioned myself, remove the threat until such time as another hit upon our methods, and used them. West himself might master his own paranormal senses one day, and resurrect his ambitions; and I did not wish another Lee to spring up.  
Did I really fear Herbert, though? It had been long ingrained into me to be wary of him. I had forgone my affections for the blackest horror, thinking of him as changed; as lacking the humanity that I had always assumed must lay buried within him. I had only seen hints of the nervous strain he was then under; I had remained with him only out of shame and responsibility. Now, however, I found myself proven wrong. West was human. He was human in the deepest sense; injured, afraid, and requiring of me the greatest compassion and respect. He was doing his utmost; which efforts had been enough to rescue himself and deliver him to my care.  
No, I no longer feared Herbert, or what he might do with his prodigious, profane scientific mind. I feared rather the ramifications of Herbert’s discoveries; of an invisible world that lay all around me, and what might come out of that haunted reality to menace us. Even now, with the incense hanging like a protective cloud, Herbert was aware of continued efforts from Lee to contact him.  
My work progressed. There were others in Arkham who knew much more than I; cautious men, all of them, save for a strange artist named Pickman in the city. I did not spend long cultivating him, however, once I understood the meanness of his interests, and knew that betraying any hint of Herbert’s discoveries might add a further dimension of horror to Pickman’s pursuits. He could get me additional bodies, it was true; but I found too much danger in his assistance.  
I had much better results with one Professor Angell. He accepted my enquiries, despite my surprise given my social condition; he understood what the study of strange things might do to a man’s reputation. He understood the need for secrecy, too; and the ramifications of intruding too far into the unknown, when it concerned extrahuman forces. There was a danger of discovery by things that were not helpful, and who might enjoy an open gateway into human minds; only sheer luck had saved Herbert and I from this phenomenon thus far. I spent months working on the correct formulae, finding it necessary to combine medicinal and occult practices for the results I desired, but those results did indeed emerge. Herbert and I watched, fascinated, as we worked (this time, with Herbert at my side, and I the head of the experiment; what a change!). A reanimated rodent, separated head from body, and still capable of using said body to carry itself about, crept through a cage in our laboratory; but with the application of the ritual, and the certain substances, those senses were lost to it. We could not be sure until it was tested upon a living-or rather, non-living, functioning human-but the arcane dimension appeared effectively cut off.  
Herbert did not even ask me whether we might test the formula on a living-or rather, undead-human subject. He simply assessed the materials on the table, the rat laying there insensate (but with its head fully operational, despite its inability to coordinate body and mind), and then he trained his lessened glance at me.  
“I feel him trying, more and more,” Herbert said. “Do it now. It’s such an effort, Dan.”  
There were dangers. Would Herbert’s reconstituted body fail, having required its intangible means as a way of operating the assembled parts? Might I make a mistake, somehow severing that thing called soul from body? What if I reduced Herbert to the mindlessness of our earlier failures? I expressed my worries.  
“I don’t care,” Herbert said, brushing my arguments aside with a hint of his old mastery. “It’s been too long already. I’m… I can’t do this, Dan. I need. I need to be free.”  
And so, with much care and trepidation, I reassembled the ingredients and prepared to perform my spell once more.  
“It’s funny,” Herbert muttered, as he sat in the circle which I drew. “You always did wonder about life beyond death. I laughed at you for it,” he said. “Well. You were right, and having returned from the abyss of Death, I find myself dependent on you for the opportunity to continue my life. I must thank you, Doctor Cain.”  
“You are welcome, Doctor West,” I acknowledged him. “To all I have to give, if you will have it.” I let him have the final word. I might be the stronger now; but I would not deny Herbert his control.  
Herbert surveyed the scene; an arcane circle surrounding him, ritual incenses and flames all around the old lab; a strange pill compounded on a dish before him; and myself.  
“Go ahead, Dan,” he said. “Bewitch me.”  
I did not ready a revolver, as I might once had done. If I failed, and Herbert was once more reduced to something lesser than he was, then he was welcome to take what revenge he would.  
There was no injection; no reagent. There was only the medicine, which Herbert took stolidly, and my voice, repeating the formulae that I had written and refined under Professor Angell’s tutelage. Perhaps, and I can only suggest this, there was a strange shift in the air as I spoke.  
Afterwards, there was silence. Herbert blinked, and looked down at his body; I waited, in utter suspense. He looked down, still sitting upright in the circle; he raised his hands, flexed them. He looked about himself, as if testing something internally.  
As the wait became almost unbearable, I saw Herbert raise his head and smile at me.  
“Dan, it’s-” Words failed him for a moment. “I feel almost normal. You mad creature, it works!”  
I did not argue with the amusement of Herbert West calling me, of all people, mad. It was enough that he leapt out of the circle and hugged me close once more.  
“It did?” I asked him, my mind still active and enquiring. “How do you feel?”  
“Different,” Herbert said, snuggled up against my neck. He did not cling; he remained there as if by right. Which, I supposed, he had. “But fine. Safe. Alone in my mind. Nothing hanging about me, nothing pressuring me. Dan, thank you…”  
He kissed me, then. Perhaps it was I who kissed him; but the act was simultaneous, and it mattered little who had begun. We shared our affection, then, and after, Herbert regarded me with deliberating purpose.  
“I feel like myself again,” he said, hiding his emotions only a little way underneath that exterior that I had come to know as Dr. Herbert West. I could see his feelings now, more effectively; I knew him too well for him to hide them.  
And that was as it should be, I thought. I could share such a thing with him. He allowed it. No one else deserved it; no one else had earned that closeness.  
“I’m glad you’ve come back,” I said. The matter was not really settled. Clapham-Lee was still out there, somewhere. But Herbert was safe here, safe with me; we could plan now, with his sense of self intact and his mind whole. And still, perhaps, he might seek out my comfort; my warmth. I would like that, I thought.  
"Back to stay, I hope," Herbert said. "I've been... indisposed. Will you have me still?"  
"We should move," I said. "It might be safer, now that you're back in one piece."  
He blinked, and then, greatly to my surprise, laughed. His smile was almost angelic.  
"Yes," Herbert said. "Wouldn't want me to lose my head."


End file.
